the property which he owned, and which would belong to his relations. Hawk. P. C. c. 9; 4 Bl. Com. 189. FELON, crimes, one convicted and sentenced for a felony. A felon is infamous and cannot fill any office or become a witness in any case, unless pardoned, except in cases of absolute necessity for his own preservation and defence, as, for example, an affidavit in relation to the irregularity of a judgment in a cause in which he is a party. 2 Salk. R. 461; 2 Str. 1148; Martin's R. 25; Stark. Ev. part 2, tit. Infamy. As to the effect of a conviction in one state, where the witness is offered in another, see 17 Mass. R. 515; 2 Harr. & M'Hen. R. 120, 378; 1 Harr. & Johns. R.

572.

FELONIOUSLY, pleadings;this is a technical word which must be introduced into every indictment for a felony, charging the offence to have been committed feloniously, no other word, nor any circumlocution will supply its place. Com. Dig. Indictment, G 6; Bac. Ab. Indictment, G 1; 2 Hale, 172, 184; Hawk. B. 2, c. 25, s. 55; Cro. C. C. 37; Burn's Just. Indict. ix.; Williams's Just. Indict. iv.; Cro. Eliz. 193; 5 Co. 121; 1 Chit. Cr. Law, 242.

FELONY, crimes, is an offence which occasions a total forfeiture of either lands or goods or both at common law; and to which capital or other punishment may be superadded according to the degree of guilt. 4 Bl. Com. 94, 5; 1 Russ. Cr. *42; 1 Chit. Pract. 14; Co. Litt. 391; 1 Hawk. P. C. ch. 37; 5 Wheat. R. 153, 159.

FEMALE. An animal of the sex which bears young. It is a general rule, that the young of female animals which belong to us, are ours, nam fœtus ventrem sequitur. Inst. 2, 1, 19; Dig. 6, 1, 5, 2. The rule is, in general, the same with regard to slaves, but when a female slave

comes into a free state, even without the consent of her master, and is delivered of a child, the latter is free. Vide Feminine; Gender; Masculine.

FEME, or more properly, FEM

ME.

Woman. This word is frequently used in law. Baron and feme, husband and wife; feme covert a married woman; feme sole, a single woman.

FEME COVERT. A married woman. Coverture subjects a feme covert to some duties and disabilities, and gives her some rights and immunities to which she would not be entitled as a feme sole. These have been considered under the articles, Marriage, (q. v.) and Wife, (q. v.)

FEME SOLE. A single or unmarried woman. A married woman may sue and be sued at law, and will be treated as a feme sole, when the husband is civiliter mortuus, Bac. Ab. Baron and Feme, M ; see article, Purties to Actions, part 1, section 1, § 7, n. 3; or where, as it has been decided in England, he is an alien and has left the country, or has never been in it. 2 Esp. R. 554; 1 B. & P. 357. And courts of equity will treat a married woman as a feme sole, so as to enable her to sue or be sued whenever her husband has abjured the realm, been transported for felony, or is civilly dead. And when she has a separate proper. ty she may sue her husband, in respect of such property, with the assistance of a next friend of her own selection. Story, Eq. Pl. § 61; Story, Eq. Jur. § 1368, and see article Parties to a suit in equity, § 1, n. 2.

FEME SOLE TRADER. A married woman who trades and deals on her own account, independently of her husband. By the custom of London a feme covert being a sole trader, may sue and be sued in the city courts, as a feme sole, with reference to her transactions in London. Bac.

Ab. Baron and Feme, M. In Pennsylvania where any mariners or others go abroad leaving their wives at shop-keeping, or to work for their livelihood at any other trade, all such wives are declared to be feme sole traders, with ability to sue and be sued, without naming the husbands. Act of February 22, 1718. See Poth. De la puissance du mari, n. 20.

FEMININE. What belongs to the female sex. When the feminine is used, it is generally confined to females; as, if a man bequeathed all his mares to his son, his horses would not pass. Vide Gender; Man; Masculine.

FEOD. Vide Fief or Feud. FEOFFMENT, conveyancing, is a gift of any corporeal hereditaments to another. It also signifies the instrument or deed by which such hereditament is conveyed. This instrument was used as one of the earliest modes of conveyance of the common law. It signified, originally, the grant of a feud or fee; but it became, in time, to signify the grant of a free inheritance in fee, respect being had to the perpetuity of the estate granted, rather than to the feudal tenure. The feoffment was likewise accompanied by livery of seisin. The conveyance by feoffment, with livery of seisin, has long since become obsolete in England, and in this country it has not been used in practice. Cruise, Dig. t. 32, c. 4, s. 3; Touchs. ch. 9; 2 Bl. Com. 20; Co. Litt. 9; 4 Kent, Com. 467; Perk. ch. 3; Com. Dig. h. t.; 12 Vin. Ab. 167; Bac. Ab. h. t. in pr; Doct. Plac. 271; Dane's Ab. c. 104, a. 3, s. 4. He who gives or enfeoffs is called the feoffor; and the person enfeoffed is denominated the feoffee. 2 Bl. Com. 20.

FERÆ BESTIE. Wild beasts. See Animals; Feræ naturæ.

FERÆ NATURE. Of a wild nature. This term is used to desig

nate animals which are not usually tamed. Such animals belong to the person who has captured them only while they are in his power; for if they regain their liberty his property in them instantly ceases, unless they have animum revertendi, which is to be known only by their habit of returning. 2 Bl. Com. 386; 3 Binn. 546; Bro. Ab. Propertie, 37; Com. Dig. Biens, F; 7 Co. 17, b; 1 Chit. Pr. 87; Inst. 2, 1, 15; 13 Vin. Ab207. Property in animals feræ naturæ is not acquired by hunting them and pursuing them; if, therefore, another person kill such animal in the sight of the pursuer, he has a right to appropriate it to his own use. 3 Caines, 175; but if the pursuer brings the animal within his own control, as by entrapping it, or wounding it mortally, so as to render escape impossible, it then belongs to him. Ib. Though if he abandons it, another person may afterwards acquire property in the animal. 20 John. 75. The owner of land has a qualified property in animals feræ naturæ, when in consequence of their inability and youth, they cannot go away. 2 Bl. Com. 394; Bac. Ab. Game. Vide Whelp.

FERM or FEARM. By this ancient word is meant land, fundus, (q. v.) and, it is said, houses and tenements may pass by it. Co. Litt. 5 a.

FERRY. A place where persons and things are taken across a river or other stream in boats or other vessels, for hire. In England a ferry is considered a franchise which cannot be set up without the king's license. In most, perhaps all the United States, ferries are regulated by statute. The termini of a ferry are at the water's edge. 15 Pick. R. 254; and see 8 Greenl. R. 367; 4 John. Ch. R. 161; 2 Porter, R. 296; 7 Pick. R. 448; 2 Car. Law Repos. 69; 2 Dev. R. 403; 1 Murph. R. 279; 1 Hayw. R. 457; Vin. Ab.

h. t.; Com. Dig. Piscary B; 6 B. & Cr. 703; 12 East, R. 333; 1 Bail. R. 469; 3 Watts, R. 219; 1 Yeates, R. 167; 9 S. & R. 26.

FERRYMAN. One employed in taking persons across a river or other stream, in boats or other contrivances at a ferry. The owner of a ferry is not considered a ferryman, when it is rented and in the possession of a tenant. Minor, R. 366. Ferrymen are considered as common carriers, and are therefore the legal judges to decide when it is proper to pass over or not. 1 M'Cord, R. 444; Id. 157; 1 N. & M. 19; 2 N. & M. 17. They are to regulate how the property to be taken across shall be put in their boats or flats, 1 M'Cord, 157; and as soon as the carriage is fairly on the drop or slip of a flat, although driven by the owner's servant, it is in possession of the ferryman, and he is answerable. 1 M'Cord's R. 439.

FESTINUM REMEDIUM. A speedy remedy. This is said of those cases where the remedy for the redress of an injury is given without any unnecessary delay. Bac. Ab. Assise, A.

FETTERS, a sort of iron put on the legs of malefactors, or persons accused. When a prisoner is brought into court to plead he shall not be put in fetters. 2 Inst. 315; 3 Inst. 34; 2 Hale, 119; Hawk. b. 2, c. 28, s. 1; Kel.; 10; 1 Chitty's Cr. Law, 417. An officer having arrested a defendant on a civil suit, or a person accused of a crime, has no right to handcuff him unless it is necessary, or he had attempted to make his escape. 4 B. & C. 596; 10 Engl. C. L. Rep. 412, S. C.

FEUD. This word, in Scotland, signifies a combination of kindred to revenge injuries or affronts done to any of their blood.

FEUDAL, a term applied to whatever concerned a feud; as feudal law; feudal rights.

FEUDAL LAW. By this phrase is understood a political system which placed men and estates under hierar. chical and multiplied distinctions of lords and vassals. The principal features of this system were the following.

The right to all lands was vested in the sovereign. These were parcelled out among the great men of the nation by its chief, to be held of him, so that the king had the Dominum directum, and the grantee or vassal, had what was called Dominum utile. It was a maxim nulle terre sans seigneur. These tenants were bound to perform services to the king, generally of a military character. These great lords again granted parts of the lands they thus acquired, to other inferior vassals, who held under them, and were bound to perform services to the lord.

The principles of the feudal law will be found in Littleton's Tenures; Wright's Tenures; 2 Blackstone's Com. c. 5; Dalrymple's History of Feudal property; Sullivan's Lectures; Book of Fiefs; Spellman, Treatise of Feuds and Tenures; Le Grand Coutumier; the Salic Laws; The Capitularies; Les Etablissemens de St. Louis; Assises de Jerusalem; Poth. Des Fiefs; Merl. Rép. Feodalitè; Dolloz, Dict. Feodalité.

In the United States the Feudal law never was in its full vigor, though some of its principles are still retained. "Those principles are so interwoven with every part of our jurisprudence," says Ch. J. Tilghman, 3 S. & R. 447, "that to attempt to eradicate them would be to destroy the whole. They are massy stones worked into the foundation of our legal edifice. Most of the inconveniences attending them have been removed, and the few that remain can be easily removed, by acts of the legislature." See 3 Kent, Com. 509, 4th ed.

FIAR, in the Scotch law, is he whose property is burdened with a life-rent. Ersk. Pr. of L. Scot. B. 2, t. 9, s. 23.

FIAT, in practice, is an order of a judge, or of an officer, whose authority, to be signified by his signiture, is necessary to authenticate the particular acts.

FICTION OF LAW, is the assumption that a certain thing is true, and which gives to a person or thing, a quality which is not natural to it, and establishes, consequently, a certain disposition, which without the fiction would be repugnant to reason and to truth. It is an order of things which does not exist, but which the law prescribes or authorises; it differs from presumption, because it establishes as true, something which is false; whereas presumption supplies the proof of something true. Dalloz, Dict. h. t. Fictions were invented by the Roman pretors, who, not possessing the power to abrogate the law, were nevertheless willing to derogate from it, under the pretence of doing equity. Fiction is the resourse of weakness, which, in order to obtain its object, assumes as a fact, what is known to be contrary to truth when the legislator desires to accomplish his object he need not feign, he commands. Fictions of law owe their origin to the legislative usurpations of the bench. 4 Benth. Ev. 300. It is said that every fiction must be framed according to the rules of law, and that every legal fiction must have equity for its object. 10 Co. 42; 10 Price's R. 154; Cowp. 177; and, to prevent their evil effects, they are not allowed to be carried further than the reasons which introduced them necessarily require. 1 Lill. Ab. 610; 2 Hawk. 320. The law abounds in fictions. That an estate is in abeyance; the doctrine of remitter, by which a party who has been disseised of his freehold,

and afterwards acquires a defective title, is remitted to his former good title; that one thing done to-day, is considered as done at a preceding time by the doctrine of relation; that because one thing is proved, another shall be presumed to be true, which is the case in all presumptions; that the heir, executor and administrator, stand by representation, in the place of the deceased; are all fictions of law. "Our various introduction of John Doe and Richard Roe," says Mr. Evans, (Poth. on Ob. by Evans, vol. ii., p. 43,) "our solemn process upon disseisin by Hugh Hunt; our casually losing and finding a ship (which never was in Europe,) in the parish of St. Mary Le Bow, in the ward of Cheap; our trying the validity of a will by an imaginary wager of five pounds; our imagining and compassing the king's death, by giving information which may defeat an attack upon an enemy's settlement in the antipodes; our charge of picking a pocket, or forging a bill with force and arms of neglecting to repair a bridge, against the peace of our lord the king, his crown and dignity; are circumstances, which, looked at by themselves, would convey an impression of no very favourable nature, with respect to the wisdom of our jurisprudence." Vide 13 Vin. Ab. 209; Merl. Rép. h. t.; Dane's Ab. Index, h. t.; and Rey, des Inst. de l'Angl. tome 2, p. 219, where he severely censures these fictions as absurd and useless.

FICTITIOUS ACTIONS, praetice, are suits brought on pretended rights. They are sometimes brought, usually on a pretended wager, for the purpose of obtaining the opinion of the court on a point of law. Courts of justice were constituted for the purpose of deciding really existing questions of right between parties, and they are not bound to answer